Embroidered Border: The Death of the First Born and the Israelites Sent Away (1500s-1600s): Art, History and Details

Embroidered Border: The Death of the First Born and the Israelites Sent Away (1500s-1600s) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection.

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

The border fragments on the left tell the story of the Israelites baking unleavened bread during the first Passover, after which they were delivered out of captivity in Egypt. In the top panel, bakers mix and knead the dough; the bottom panel shows the bakers standing on a tiled floor while placing the bread into a brick oven. This common household scene would have been familiar to Italian audiences during the Renaissance. Two fragments depict events recorded in the book of Exodus. In the top panel, the pharaoh is shown releasing the Israelites after the last plague (1939.355). In the bottom panel, he changes his mind and pursues them across the parted Red Sea, only to be swallowed up after the Israelites safely crossed (1939.352).

Object facts

• Title: Embroidered Border: The Death of the First Born and the Israelites Sent Away
• Date: 1500s-1600s
• Culture: Italy
• Type: Embroidery
• Technique: Plain weave linen; embroidery in silk; attached border of needle lace
• Dimensions: Overall: 18.1 x 50.2 cm (7 1/8 x 19 3/4 in.)
• Collection: Textiles
• Department: Textiles
• Accession number: 1939.355

Collection credit

Gift of The Textile Arts Club

Further reading listed by the museum

• Underhill, Gertrude. "Gifts of the Textile Arts Club." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 33, no. 3 (1946): 24-26.
• Wardwell, Anne E. Material Matters: Fifty Years of Gifts from the Textile Arts Club, 1934-1984. Cleveland: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1984.
• Liscia Bemporad, Dora, and Olga Melasecchi. Tutti i colori dell'Italia ebraica: tessuti preziosi dal Tempio di Gerusalemme al prêt-à-porter. 2019.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.